Outlaw's Code by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2017-05-29T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

CHAPTER XX

SHE was dressed almost like any peon’s daughter. She wore the plainest of dresses, unstockinged legs, and she wriggled her toes in the straps of the cheapest sort of huaraches. There was only one discordant note: a heavy golden chain was thrice looped around her neck, like a narrow collar.

She was feeding the squirrels. He watched her slim hands moving among them, very slowly. The downward cast of her eyes and her solemn, unsmiling lips gave her a melancholy and thoughtful air.

He hardly knew that she had looked up at him, when he heard her saying: “It’s all right. You can walk along. They won’t budge away for you.”

He canted his ear to the voice, it was so low and husky, rather as though she were recovering from a cold. He had a strong physical sense of pleasure from the sound of her speech.

Then it occurred to him as strange that she should speak English. He took off his hat to her in greeting.

“You’ve been in the States,” he said. “You talk like it.”

“No,” she said. “I haven’t been in the States. But I had a rare good stroke of luck, a few years ago. A good handy gunman was run out of Texas, and got down to San Vicente, and he heated up San Vicente, too, until it was about boiling, and so they gave him a run that landed him at our house. He stayed on for a long time. He almost lost a leg from an infection that set in. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Father Joseph, he would have lost his leg. As it was, he had to stay long enough with us to polish up my English a bit. But as soon as he could hobble, he borrowed a mule from us and drove north again.”

“Stole a mule, you mean?” suggested Grey.

“We thought so, at first. But after a while, he sent us down three times the price of the mule. And after that, whenever my birthday came around, and Christmas, and Easter, he used to send down big sums of money. He said he was doing very well at his trade. We never knew an address to write to him, though, and tell him that we couldn’t take his money. It’s all laid away and waiting for him.”

“What’s his trade?” asked Grey.

“Bank robbing, mostly,” she replied, calmly. “And sometimes he does a little counterfeiting. But he says that counterfeiting is a bore, because it takes so much time, and one has to have such a plant. Perhaps you know how it is?”

“No. Not exactly,” smiled Grey. “What’s the name of this fellow?”

“He called himself Leonard Smith when he was here,” said she. “I don’t know his name. He was redheaded, and he had a good, hearty laugh. He was wild to get back to his own country again.”

“To hunt for money again?” asked Grey.

“No, not that. But he was a king, d’you see, like this squirrel here. And it

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.